Three Questions to Assess a Person’s Intuition

Intuition matters but pays more attention to the unconscious bias.

The word intuition comes from Latin verb “intueri” which is usually translated as to look inside or to contemplate. Intuition is thus often conceived as a kind of inner perception, the gut feeling, sometimes regarded as lucidity or understanding. Digital professionals have to leverage both their intuition skills and analytics ability to make either business or personal decisions every day, from talent management perspective, how to evaluate a person’s intuition or “gut feeling”?

How much shall you trust your “gut feeling”? Intuition is also called gut-feeling; intuition or being intuitive is when you have a gut feeling about something. Jung's definition of intuition is a reference to intuition as one of the functions of the psyche related to ego-personality. He distinguished also between passive and active intuition. Intuition is a complex concept and perhaps it is impossible to make a single definition that applies to all kinds of situations in which intuition is involved. It is when there isn’t an exact answer to the puzzle because you don’t have all the pieces. Chaos needs to be navigated by intuition, but the Master Creator knows how to put things together; solutions continue to beget new problems. Intuition is the perception of inside images etc. because it seems to have got to do something with the gut. In many of the ancient religions, there is such concept of the fourth brain. It says that the brain not only sits in the head, but there is one part at the solar plexus. That's where intuitions come. Our conscious ego is a small part of the human psyche. Most of the psyche consist of the collective unconsciousness and it is from which that creativity stems.

Do you often make choices via intuition or deliberate thinking? Is it just our belief in an intuition which finally influences our mind to go by the intuition? Or is there a concrete evidence to prove that intuition is all about what is destined for us? Intuition is not just the emotional side of the mind; sometimes it’s an inner calling. One has to be too deeply inclined, and sensitive, to listen to this subtlest sound of silence. As human beings, we normally go with the belief in it and hence we may not get into an investigative mood about the outcome of following our intuition. We may tend just to accept whatever happens and be happy with it. Also, Intuition does not mean one stops making conscious choices totally. Conscious choice is when we apply our mind and "make a decision." actively. This could be based on our intelligence, past experiences. Intuition matters but pays more attention to the unconscious bias. The problem with intuitive decision-making though is that it can seldom be quantified and so analyzed.

What’s your personal way to assess your “intuition mode”? People have different ways of accessing their intuition and “knowing” when they have made a good decision. On a personal level, there may be a number of factors involved, possibly just outside of your awareness, that let you know when a decision is right for you. Intuition is one element for our unconscious process which is created out of our distilled experiences; it is often used when there is a high level of uncertainty. Meaning, there is little precedent to go on, when the ‘risks‘ are less predictable and when “facts” are limited. What might be identified as "intuition" is probably subconscious rapid assessment through a decision tree to come up with an appropriate and timely response to an unfolding situation. That is the ideal outcome for training certain professions with an "automatic" (intuitive) appearing reaction. Intuition is a “Thinking Faster” mentality, often it needs some kind of catalyst - we need to be provoked to make our intuition work, sometimes it is a thought-provoking question, other times it is a triggered event.

An intuitive mind has the strength and the willpower to follow the courageous heart, and thus, having the better chance to be creative. Then you are courageous enough to follow the gut and curious enough to understand the surroundings, and you learn how to liberate the imagination and come up with a new approach to the world. Intuition is a deeper sense, should be taken as a new insight, a new idea, and a new angle, but still, pay more attention to the unconscious bias.